Interesting story of present/latter day warriors. I never seen the golden temple. That would be a experience unto itself..GM

Yes, it is quite an experience unto itself.

It was quite busy when we recently visited the place on HOLI, a day of festival celebrated with great enthusiasm in North India. People of all religious, cultural and national backgrounds come to Golden Temple, since all are welcome.

singhg5: I always made it a point to inquire before going into a Hindu Temple or any temple for that matter... Walked many a street in Mumbai and never encountered a bad situation or ill intent. I stayed at the palace in the Pink City and that was fun, especially interesting was the ancient stone house of instruments.

Jantar Mantar consists of fourteen geometric devices which can measure time, predict eclipse, track stars with the location of earth orbiting around the sun, decline of planets and determining the celestial altitudes. All the instruments in general are large structures attributing the specific prediction. Declared as the national monument in 1948, every instrument has its own uniqueness built by the stones and marbles carrying an astronomical scale. The unique characteristics of each instrument individually share a place of pride in the book of the pink city

singhg5: I always made it a point to inquire before going into a Hindu Temple or any temple for that matter... Walked many a street in Mumbai and never encountered a bad situation or ill intent. I stayed at the palace in the Pink City and that was fun, especially interesting was the ancient stone house of instruments.

Jantar Mantar consists of fourteen geometric devices which can measure time, predict eclipse, track stars with the location of earth orbiting around the sun, decline of planets and determining the celestial altitudes. All the instruments in general are large structures attributing the specific prediction. Declared as the national monument in 1948, every instrument has its own uniqueness built by the stones and marbles carrying an astronomical scale. The unique characteristics of each instrument individually share a place of pride in the book of the pink city

I really liked Jaipur...we rode our Enfields up into the fort, just before the main gate, which was pretty cool. I had no idea we were closing in on it at the time, but about 10-15 bikes rumbling through the little ancient lanes was pretty cool, and suddenly we were on the ramp up into the fort itself.

Ended up taking my wife and MiL back for another visit. Love the Hawa Mahal early in the morning when no one's there, with the view back towards Jantar Mantar.

More topically, we also had a great ride out to another local fort near Hyderabad: Bidhar, which is near a large gurudwara. After riding on the ramparts of that fort, too, one of our Sikh riders took us on the grand tour of the gurudwara and surrounding town during one of the year's biggest festival days, lungar included. Tons of fun, despite the near-cooking of the soles of my feet. Those stones get hot!

I find Sikhism in some ways oddly similar to Judaism...monotheism, reverence of the book, a sung liturgy, covering of the head as a sign of humility, etc.